AVG releases free 'TuneUp' application for Android devices

Security vendor AVG has released an application for Android that lets users adjust power settings and manage applications to conserve battery power.

TuneUp for Android, which is in Google's Play store, is free. The power controls can be used to turn off certain phone functions in case the battery is running low as well as monitor the power consumption of applications.

The application's "Task Killer" shows the applications and services running on a device and lets users stop ones that are consuming a lot of memory, which may also may help an Android device run faster.

Users can set alerts with the "Data Usage" feature so they don't run over their data limits set by their mobile service provider. The feature lists how much data has been used per application and when the application began consuming data.

The device's memory can also be monitored. TuneUp for Android shows the amount of internal memory that is being used and the remaining space on an SD card, if the device has one. Applications and utilities can also be deleted using this function to free up memory.

AVG's application works on devices running Android version 2.1 and higher.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

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Microsoft signs patent licensing deal with Foxconn covering Android, Chrome devices

Microsoft has signed up another major electronics manufacturer to its Android and Chrome patent licensing program, this time Taiwan's Foxconn, which will pay royalties to the U.S. software giant.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it covers Foxconn manufactured devices running the Android and Chrome operating systems, including smartphones, tablets and televisions, Microsoft said on Tuesday.

Foxconn is just the latest contract manufacturer to sign up for Microsoft's Android and Chrome patent licensing program, despite the fact that Google developed the two operating systems.

Both Android and Chrome use its technologies, according to Microsoft, and in the past the U.S. software giant has sued Android vendors over alleged patent infringement. In 2011, Microsoft filed a lawsuit against Barnes & Nobles, along with one of Foxconn's manufacturing companies, for running patent infringing software on its Android-based Nook e-reader.

Microsoft's licensing agreements give a way for Android vendors to avoid facing further legal action. Other companies that have struck similar deals include Taiwanese electronics manufacturers Compal and Wistron, and handset and tablet makers Samsung, HTC, and Acer.

Foxconn is best known as a manufacturer of Apple's iPhones and iPad products. But the company also assembles tablets for Amazon, and handsets for Nokia, Motorola and Huawei, according to analysts.

Since 2003, Microsoft has signed more than 1,100 patent licensing agreements for access to the company's technologies.

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ACLU complains to FTC that mobile carriers leave Android phones unsecured

Smartphones with custom versions of Android offered by large mobile operators in the U.S. are not getting security updates as regularly as phones from Google, or smartphones from other vendors like Microsoft, according to a complaint by the American Civil Liberties Union to the Federal Trade Commission.

"Android smartphones that do not receive regular, prompt security updates are defective and unreasonably dangerous," ACLU said in the complaint on Tuesday.

The complaint against AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA states that "all of the major wireless carriers have failed to deliver regular, prompt updates to Android phones which they have sold to their customers," citing results from a survey in December last year by technology news site Ars Technica.

The sale of mobile computing devices such as smartphones and the software updates to the devices are not part of common carrier activities, and are hence subject to FTC authority, according to the complaint, a copy of which is on the ACLU website.

The mobile carriers accused in the complaint could not be immediately reached for comment.

Most Android devices offered by operators are customized by handset makers and wireless operators to support specific hardware, proprietary user interfaces and software application and services, with the result that they are "in effect, unique operating systems which only these companies have the ability to update," according to the complaint.

ACLU distinguishes between "Google-managed Nexus devices", which are sold and managed directly by Google, and run the standard version of Android, and "Non-Google-managed Nexus devices." While the Google managed devices receive regular software updates from Google, the others "do not -- and, in fact, cannot -- receive operating system updates without the participation and approval of the wireless carrier."

Device manufacturers can take time to produce a device-specific update incorporating a vulnerability fix, if there are proprietary modifications to the device's software, according to a 2012 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, also cited by ACLU. Carriers can be delayed in providing the updates from the manufacturer because they need time to test whether they interfere with other aspects of the device or the software installed on it, it added.

The browsers on the smartphones are also outdated and pose security risks, according to the complaint, which has asked the FTC to require the operators to allow users to exchange their Android smartphones that are less than 2 years old for one that receives regular security updates, or return the phone for a full refund of the purchase price, if they have not been receiving regular and prompt security updates.

ACLU also asked the FTC to compel the operators to allow customers using carrier-supplied Android smartphones to cancel contracts without any early termination fees. The operators should also be compelled to warn all subscribers using carrier-supplied Android smartphones with known, unpatched security vulnerabilities.

In a similar case, the FTC filed suit last year against hospitality company Wyndham Worldwide and three of its subsidiaries for alleged data security failures leading to three data breaches at Wyndham hotels in less than two years. The FTC said it was part of its ongoing effort to make sure companies live up to their promises on security and data privacy.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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Taiwan's FTC investigating Samsung for defaming HTC on local online forums

Fabricated Internet posts praising Samsung at the expense of HTC products has landed the South Korean company in hot water with Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission.

Taiwan's FTC said on Tuesday it was investigating the matter, and could punish Samsung for up to NT$25 million (US$835,000) if it is found to be in violation of fair trade rules.

The investigation occurs after a local site, called TaiwanSamsungLeaks, accused the South Korean company of "evil marketing" for covertly criticizing rival products through anonymous Internet users. As evidence, the site published documents allegedly from Samsung's hired marketing firm cataloguing the different forum posts it made last year on local gadget sites.

The topics covered included a user complaining that his girlfriend's HTC One X phone was constantly crashing, and how Samsung's Galaxy Note phone was superior to HTC's Sensation XL handset.

Benchmark reviews were also posted, claiming that Samsung's Galaxy S3 outperformed the HTC One X in battery life and graphics. In addition, some of the comments tried to praise Samsung, and asked if the company's handsets had helped local users earn job promotions.

Samsung said it has as yet to receive a notice from Taiwan's FTC on the investigation. But the "unfortunate incident" did occur, the company admitted.

"Samsung Electronics Taiwan (SET) has ceased all marketing activities that involve the posting of anonymous comments," it said on Tuesday in a statement. The company adheres to "transparent and honest communications with consumers," and is working to prevent the problem from occurring again.

HTC, however, said in a statement it won't rule out "taking appropriate action" to protect the company and its consumers. Taiwan is HTC's home market.

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Google discloses tech specs and developer API for Glass

The Google Glass wearable computer will have a high-resolution display equivalent of a 25-inch high-definition screen from eight feet away, and will capture 5-megapixels images and video at a resolution of 720p, according to technical specs disclosed on Monday.

The device will also support Wi-Fi compliant with 802.11b/g standards and Bluetooth, and has 12GB of usable memory, synced with Google cloud storage. It has 16GB flash memory in total.

Google has notified some users selected under its Glass Explorer testers program that some of the US$1,500 glasses were being produced and shipped in phases, according to reports.

The battery will support one full day of typical use, though some features like video recording are more battery intensive. Charging is through an included Micro USB cable and charger, and Google recommends the use of the charger that ships with Google Glass, rather than the "thousands of Micro USB chargers out there," according to a document on the Google Glass support page.

The device is compatible with Bluetooth-capable phones. The MyGlass companion app, which enables GPS (Global Positioning System) and SMS (Short Message Service) messaging, requires Android 4.0.3 or higher.

Google also gave a limited developer preview of Google Mirror API, which it told developers allows them to build Web-based services, called Glassware, that interact with Google Glass. It provides this functionality over a cloud-based API (application programming interface) and does not require running code on Glass, it added.

Timeline cards, which can be text, rich HTML, images, or video, are at the core of the user experience and display the content that users see, Google said. Developers can specify menu items on timeline cards and these can include built-in actions like read aloud, reply-by-voice, and navigation tools, or custom actions specific to the service the developer offers, according to the post.

Glassware can share content with contacts which can be a person or other Glassware. The Glassware can also be made aware of users' locations with appropriate permission from users.

Google has released user interface guidelines, a developer guide and reference documentation on the API for developers.

The terms of service for developers, however, prohibits them from charging users for downloading their client or from sale of virtual goods. Developers cannot also display advertisements through their Glassware clients, or use data from the client for advertising purposes. Developers are also forbidden from selling data collected through the application to third parties such as data brokers and ad networks.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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Android founder: We aimed to make a camera OS

The creators of Android originally dreamed it would be used to create a world of "smart cameras" that connected to PCs, a founder said, but it was reworked for mobile handsets as the smartphone market began to explode.

"The exact same platform, the exact same operating system we built for cameras, that became Android for cellphones," said Android co-founder Andy Rubin, who spoke at an economic summit in Tokyo.

Rubin, who became a Google executive after the search giant acquired Android in August 2005, said the plan was to create a camera platform with a cloud portion for storing photos online.

He showed slides from his original pitch to investors in April 2004, including one with a camera connected "wired or wireless" to a home computer, which then linked to an "Android Datacenter."

But growth in digital cameras was gradually slowing as the technology became mainstream. Rubin's company revamped its business plan: A pitch from five months later declares it to be an "open-source handset solution."

Android kept its software core, including its Java core. The operating system's use of Java is at the heart of an ongoing multi-billion dollar lawsuit filed against Google by Oracle, around which an eight-week jury trial has just begun.

Back in 2005, the company added team members who had experience at companies like T-Mobile and Orange, and began to target rivals like mobile versions of Windows. Apple didn't enter the market until 2007.

"We decided digital cameras wasn't actually a big enough market," said Rubin. "I was worried about Microsoft and I was worried about Symbian, I wasn't worried about iPhone yet."

Rubin said there was an opportunity at the time because even as hardware costs fell steeply due to commoditization, software vendors were charging the same amount for their operating systems, taking up an ever larger part of manufacturers' budgets. As Android considered its product to be a platform for selling other services and products, the company aimed for growth, not per-unit income.

"We wanted as many cellphones to use Android as possible. So instead of charging $99, or $59, or $69, to Android, we gave it away for free, because we knew the industry was price sensitive," he said.

Handsets worked out better than cameras. An original "ambitious" projection by the company aimed for a 9 percent market share in North America and Europe by 2010; Android hit 72 percent last year. Google said in March that over 750 million Android devices have gone on line globally.

The Android operating system also eventually returned to its roots. Samsung has launched a Galaxy Camera that runs Android, along with similar offerings from makers including Nikon and Polaroid. The OS has been used in devices including tablets, TVs, espresso makers and refrigerators.

Rubin was a speaker at the Japan New Economy Summit held Tuesday in Tokyo. The summit was backed by a Japanese business group that aims to kick-start the country's economy.

In March, Google announced that Rubin had stepped down from his role leading Android in order to "start a new chapter" at the company.

Rubin said Tuesday he would continue to create products directed at end users.

"I can pretty much guarantee you that whatever I do next it's going to be something that delights consumers."

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Rackspace to offer OpenStack deployments for service providers

Expanding beyond its own OpenStack hosted services, Rackspace is offering to build OpenStack deployments for other hosting providers as well, such as telecommunication companies.

"We're getting into the business of helping large service providers become cloud providers," said Scott Sanchez, Rackspace's director of strategy. "We're taking all of our accumulated knowledge around how to be a successful cloud provider and we're delivering that to service providers around the world."

Additionally, Rackspace will make the OpenStack deployments it builds interoperable, in effect creating a federated cloud of linked OpenStack deployments. While the logistical and billing details are still being worked out, the idea is that a customer of one provider could use another service provider's cloud, allowing the customers to run their workloads in different locations around the globe.

Along with NASA, Rackspace created the OpenStack suite of software for hosting IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service) deployments, in which users can provision computational, networking and storage components, and not worry about maintaining the supporting hardware. Rackspace now offers its own hosted OpenStack service, offered from a number of locations around the world, such as in London, Hong Kong and Sydney.

This new program "gives us a way to rapidly expand the footprint that we are able to offer our customers, and, at the same time, help achieve our mission to make OpenStack the most pervasive platform for open cloud computing," Sanchez said.

Regional service providers may also know better ways to reach their local audiences, Sanchez said. The primary customers would be "large incumbent telcos in regions around the world that own and operate their data centers. They may offer hosted services and may want to offer cloud services under their brand names," Sanchez said.

In this offering, Rackspace will deliver servers with pre-installed copies of OpenStack, or it will install OpenStack and supporting software on servers provided by the service providers. It will patch, tune and monitor the deployments adhering to service level agreements (SLA) established between Rackspace and the service provider. It will provide sales, support training and engineering level support.

Sanchez did not reveal prices for a typical deployment, but noted that a deployment could scale to fill an entire data center. The price would consist of an upfront fee for installation and equipment, and a smaller monthly fee for maintenance. Rackspace could provide metrics of customer usage, which the providers could then use for their own billing.

"Not every provider wants to or should build a cloud from scratch and a turnkey packaged cloud solution from Rackspace will be of interest to many providers," said Gary Chen, IDC research manager for cloud and virtualization system software, in a statement.

Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @Joab_Jackson. Joab's e-mail address is Joab_Jackson@idg.com

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Report: Microsoft may also make smart watches

Microsoft is working on designs for a touch-enabled smart watch, joining a number of other large competitors like Samsung Electronics and Apple who are said to be working on similar devices, a newspaper reported.

Executives at suppliers to Microsoft told The Wall Street Journal that the company was sourcing components for the prototype of what could potentially be a "watch-style device."

Microsoft has, for example, requested 1.5-inch displays from component makers for the prototype, an executive at a component supplier told the newspaper. It is unclear whether the company will decide to go ahead with the watch, the newspaper added.

Microsoft could not be immediately reached for comment.

A large number of vendors are looking at new product categories beyond smartphones and tablets.

This isn't the first time, however, that Microsoft may be looking at watches as a product. It launched a smart wrist watch around a concept called Smart Personal Object Technology it unveiled in 2002, but withdrew it after a lackluster performance.

The Redmond, Washington, company is seeing its key PC market under threat from smartphones and tablets, and the failure of its new Windows 8 operating system to boost sales significantly. IDC said last week that first quarter PC shipments totaled 76.3 million units, down 13.9 percent compared to the same quarter last year. (The decline was worse than the 7.7 percent previously forecast by the analyst firm, and the market could be headed into further contraction, the research firm added.

Microsoft has been targeting new markets including by launching its own Surface tablets which by the fourth quarter of last year had not made a significant impact on the tablet market that was dominated by Apple and Samsung.

Gartner forecast in October last year that wearable smart electronics in shoes, tattoos, and accessories will emerge as a US$10 billion industry by 2016. Most of the revenue from wearable smart electronics over the next four years will come from athletic shoes and fitness tracking, communications devices for the ear, and automatic insulin delivery for diabetics, the research firm said. The new smart watches are expected to offer a variety of such applications besides telling the time.

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Arris cleared by DOJ to acquire Motorola's set-top box business

Arris Group has received clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice for its proposed acquisition of the Motorola Home business.

The broadband device vendor said it now expects to close the transaction on or about Wednesday, as all "required regulatory approvals have been received, or the applicable waiting periods have expired."

Google said in December it plans to sell the TV set-top box business of its Motorola Mobility subsidiary, which it acquired last year, to Arris for US$2.35 billion in cash and stock.

The Internet giant acquired Motorola Mobility more for its mobile phones business and its patents, and prepared to sell off the set-top box business.

As part of the deal, Google will receive about $300 million of newly issued shares in Arris, giving it about 15.7 percent ownership in the company. Arris will also get licenses to some of Motorola's mobile patents to drive the interaction of mobile phones with set-top boxes. Google also limited Arris' potential financial liability in a patent infringement lawsuit it is fighting with TiVo.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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Hackers said to have attacked WordPress blogs

Unidentified hackers are said to have have launched a large-scale attack against WordPress blogs, and any hosts using weak passwords are urged to update them immediately.

Security firms have been tracking an escalating number of "brute force" attacks against WordPress installations, which have been trying out logins such as "admin" and then running through thousands of commonly-used passwords to try to break in.

"One of the concerns of an attack like this is that the attacker is using a relatively weak botnet of home PCs in order to build a much larger botnet of beefy servers in preparation for a future attack," security and website performance firm CloudFlare said in a post Friday.

Security firm Incapsula told security blog KrebsOnSecurity that infected sites are seeded with a backdoor that gives the attackers remote control of the site. "The infected sites then are conscripted into the attacking server botnet, and forced to launch password-guessing attacks against other sites running WordPress," the site reported.

Hosting site HostGator also warned of the attack.

"As I type these words, there is an on-going and highly-distributed, global attack on WordPress installations across virtually every web host in existence," HostGator said in a post.

"This attack is well organized and again very, very distributed; we have seen over 90,000 IP addresses involved in this attack," it said.

It advised anyone with WordPress installation to update their password immediately to one that meets the requirements on the WordPress website.

The attack gathered steam last week, died off somewhat and picked up again Thursday morning, it said. Symptoms of the attack are slow back-end performance or an inability to log in. In some cases sites may be inaccessible for a short time, it said.

HostGator said it was trying to mitigate the attack through its server farm but that it could only do so much.

There was no mention of the attack on the WordPress blog or its Twitter account Friday evening.

James Niccolai covers data centers and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow James on Twitter at @jniccolai. James's e-mail address is james_niccolai@idg.com

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